What's This?
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Yachiru opens Mayuri’s heart to the spirit of Christmas in her own special way.


**Title: **What's This?  
**Universe:** Bleach  
**Theme/Topic: **Christmas  
**Rating:** PG  
**Character/Pairing/s:** Yachiru, Mayuri, Akon, Kenpachi   
**Warnings/Spoilers:** Haha warnings for OOC and stupidity, clearly. But Yachiru does that to people, I guess. Even the meanest ones. XD  
**Word Count:** 1,826  
**Summary:** Yachiru opens Mayuri's heart to the spirit of Christmas in her own special way.  
**Dedication:** requested by shinigamikender. **  
A/N:** Hahaha, Mayuri is SO OOC HERE. But it was fun. Kind of. I'm SORRY, okay!? I don't know what I'm doing. sob  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

* * *

"So…where's my present?" 

Mayuri stared down at the pint-sized brat in the Santa hat on his doorstep. And then moved to close the door immediately.

Except before he could, she was suddenly perched inquisitively on his shoulder. He'd forgotten that she could move like that. "Ne, ne, bozo-face, where's my present?" Yachiru repeated, and absently dodged the hand/s he was swatting at her with, trying to get her _off_.

"What present?" Mayuri snarled. "I don't owe you anything."

Yachiru pouted and climbed onto his head next. "But it's Christmas! You're supposed to give people presents!"

Mayuri sputtered indignantly and tried again to shake her off. "Get away from me you parasite, and leave this place at once!"

"Boo," Yachiru replied, and smacked his head with a small palm in what was meant to be a chastising manner. "It's the givin' season, bozo-face!"

"We don't even celebrate that insipid human holiday here!" the twelfth division captain shot back, and finally managed to grab her and yank her off of her perch on his head.

He held her out in front of him much as one might hold a particularly filthy puppy.

She blinked up at him. "Ken-chan says I can celebrate whatever I wanna!"

Kurotsuchi sniffed. "Exactly the sort of overindulgent parenting I would suspect from such a ruffian." He promptly put her back down, onto the doorstep. "Now run along. Harass less important public figures. Or…go throw rocks into ponds…whatever it is useless people do to while away the time these days."

Yachiru frowned. "But I made a list! And it says you didn't give me a present yet!" She held out a piece of paper that had a badly drawn cartoon rendition of Mayuri on it, in red crayon. Across the top, it read: "Naughty list."

Mayuri stared. "You mean to tell me that you're going about bothering _everyone_ who hasn't given you a gift for your _self-declared_ holiday just because you feel putting it on paper gives you the right?"

By her answering expression he supposed it all made perfect sense to her. Such was how simple minds worked, after all. He sighed. "I'm not giving you a gift simply because you've decided it's _appropriate_ to ask in such a manner. And your drawing is hardly to scale."

Really. Children these days had absolutely no manners. And even worse, no respect for accuracy.

Yachiru eyed him. "Don't tell me bozo-face is a scrooge! Are you a scrooge?"

He blinked. "What in the world is that?"

Yachiru crossed her arms. "A scrooge is a scrooge!" she told him, like it ought to be obvious.

He sneered down at her, superior in every way. "You can't insult someone if they can't even begin to properly interpret the nature of your insult due to your poorly conveyed, overly vague and exceptionally ill-conceived definition of what exactly it is that you're likening them to."

Yachiru sighed. "Scrooges are big stupid meanie-heads. I thought everybody knew that! You don't even know _that_, bozo-face?"

He twitched at her implication. How…rude. "Leave immediately."

"But bozo-face you can't just…"

He shut the door on her.

"Children! Awful creatures," he hissed after she was gone, and shuddered to himself in disgust before turning around and heading back to work. There were more important things to worry about, and he didn't have time to let such trivial things bother him.

Later, Akon blinked as his captain snarled angrily for the umpteenth time (in the middle of a run of test simulations) and thrice cursed that little pink-haired cretin who had so accosted him earlier in the afternoon.

Apparently whatever she'd said was eating at the twelfth division captain more than he'd like.

"_Me_! Stupid? How absurd! How… meanie-head isn't even a _word_. She's using words that aren't _words_ and has the _gall_ to call _me_ stupid?! She is every bit her father's daughter."

The twelfth division scientist stared. "Um…taichou… the wave test simulations are ready."

Mayui glared and waved at him dismissively. "Then _run them_, you imbecile. Must I hold your hand the entire time? It's like speaking to a very slow _child_. _Again!_"

"Er, running the simulation now, sir."

Akon quickly ran the simulation. Mayuri watched the computer screens blip and beep and generally do their jobs as the test began, though for some reason, found himself far too distracted at the moment to properly appreciate the readings.

After a moment, he slammed a fist down onto the console. "Impudent little rat! I'll bet she even _defined_ the ridiculous term incorrectly. It was probably the best her peanut-sized mind could come up with! Appalling! Meanie-head indeed. _Stupid_! Unacceptable. Completely unacceptable."

Akon blinked some more. "Er…sir?"

"You," the captain said, suddenly, and pointed at him. "Go and find me the correct definition of this "scrooge" term, immediately. It has something to do with Christmas, I believe."

"Sir?"

"Immediately means _now_, you idiot," Mayuri snapped, irritably.

"Um, I'll get right on it," Akon hastily responded, before slinking out of the room with a confused backwards glance over his shoulder at the brooding captain.

"I'll show _her_," Mayuri muttered to himself, and tapped his fingers rhythmically against the tabletop he was leaning against. "_Stupid_. The nerve!"

Akon hurried to his task.

Not long afterwards, "A Christmas Carol" was securely in the twelfth division captain's hands, and as he read, he found himself growing more and more indignant at Yachiru's insult. "Clearly Scrooge _was_ stupid," he muttered to himself. "Not only fearing death but to do so after being given such a wildly inaccurate view of the afterlife. I think _I_ personally would have questioned the ghosts' validity before agreeing to cavort around town with them and subjecting myself to such inane images of human cheer."

Akon stared. "Okay."

"How dare that pint-sized terror liken me to such a buffoon. Unspeakable!"

"Horrible, sir," Akon agreed, and wondered where the hell everyone else had suddenly disappeared to. Got out while they could, probably.

Mayuri scoffed, derisively, and tossed the book aside after he finished. "Idiotic."

"What is?" a bright voice asked, right next to his ear.

He jumped, literally three feet into the air.

Yachiru blinked at him, calmly. "Whatsa matter, scrooge?"

"H-how did you get in here? Where did you come from? Didn't anyone teach you any manners?"

She pointed up. "Came in through the winda." And then grinned. "You sure jumped pretty high just now, bozo-face!"

"I did nothing of the sort. Stop calling me that. And I am _not_ a scrooge. That was a wildly inaccurate accusation on your part."

Akon was hard pressed to suppress his grin. "Should I leave you two…"

"Shut up and get out of here," Mayuri snapped, reading the other scientist's look and making a mental note to punish his subordinate later.

"You are too a scrooge!" Yachiru gleed. Then puffed up. "But I'm here ta fix everything, since I'm the ghost of Christmas present! BOO!"

He stared at her. "That's also inaccurate. A shinigami and a ghost—while similar in some respects, differ enough in physical makeup that the two cannot correctly be called the same thing."

Really, didn't anyone teach these little worms that bending the facts so blatantly was dangerous to their credibility? To _seireitei's_ credibility?

She simply looked like she wanted to roll her eyes at him. "Here!" she declared without further ado, and pulled something out of her pocket and waved it under his nose. "Merry Christmas, scrooge!"

He stared at an obviously (and poorly) handmade stocking with the words "bozo-face" written across it in green glitter. "What is…"

"A stocking!" Yachiru told him. "Duh."

Mayuri didn't appreciate the tone she was taking with him. "And what does _it_ have to do with _me_?"

"It's your Christmas present, dummy! See? It has your name on it!"

He glared. "That is _not_ my name."

"Sure it is!" She patted him on the back with one small palm. "I made it 'specially for ya!"

He blinked. "Why?"

"Are ya even listenin' at _all_? I'm the ghost of Christmas present!"

A moment.

And then… he got it.

A pun. How terribly clever.

He sighed. "I'm still not getting you anything," he told her, imperiously.

She grinned. "I already know that! It's 'cuz you're a scrooge." She continued to pat him. "It's sokay though! Ken-chan already gave me the best present ever."

He didn't like the sound of that. "By what criteria could you possibly measure 'the best present ever'? And even if you _could_—accurately at that— I doubt _that_ buffoon would be the one most capable of finding it and actually _giving_ it to anyone."

She laughed. "You're silly."

"Don't just dismiss me like that!"

She blinked at him. "Are you turning into a sulky-pants too?"

"No! Of course not. Pants aren't even sentient, which means they wouldn't be able to…"

"There's candy in the stocking!" she interrupted helpfully, like that would somehow make him feel better about being outclassed by Kenpachi.

He glared. "Tell me what Zaraki got you."

"I already said! The best present ever!"

"You can't possibly believe that. And stop defining terms with themselves."

"I _know _it's the best present ever! It's a big giant box of chocolate. It's amazing!"

Mayuri scoffed. "_That's_ the best present ever? How completely unoriginal. And how _like you_, to actually _believe_ that it's worth such a title."

She pouted at him. "What, you think you could do better, bozo-face?"

The twelfth division captain, now properly reassured of his superiority over the likes of Zaraki, sat back and smirked confidently. "I guarantee it."

Some hours later, Kenpachi walked past the backdoor to his office on his way back from getting a cold beer. And then, when he saw what he _thought_ he saw through the open portal, he backtracked and stared out of it some, just to make sure he wasn't crazy, or already drunk.

He blinked. Definitely what he thought he'd saw. And he didn't think he was drunk.

But just to make sure, he asked, "Is that…a pony?"

"Ken-chan, lookit! A pony!" Yachiru greeted right on cue, and waved at him from the courtyard.

"The hell did you get that?"

"Bozo-face gave it to me! He said it's definitely the number one best present ever because the highest percentages of young girls ask for it on Christmas! Or something! I don't remember!"

Zaraki blinked. "Huh."

She clapped, triumphantly. "See? I _told_ ya the ghost of Christmas presents makes everybody nice! Even bozo-face!"

Zaraki watched her bounce on the slightly bewildered pony's back.

And then, after a very long moment of silence, he raised his beer to her, admitting defeat. Because he sure as hell hadn't expected Kurotsuchi to cave. "More power to ya, kid," he said by way of congratulations, and trudged off to go get drunk for real now.

Meanwhile, back at the twelfth division headquarters, Mayuri congratulated himself on—once again—outwitting those idiots over at the eleventh division.

They really didn't know _anything._

**END**


End file.
